She was gone some minutes, that to Loveday dragged as weeks,
though when she reappeared Loveday felt that the time of waiting had
gone too soon, and she wished for it to begin once more, so much she
dreaded to ask what had been said. Mrs. Lear spared her the need for
questioning.
"'Tes no manner of use, Loveday," she said, "Primrose won't hear of it,
and being as she is, I can't contrairy her."
Loveday felt the futility of argument, and, indeed, in the violent
reaction that attacks such ardent natures, she felt too numb to make the
attempt even had she wished. She stood staring at Mrs. Lear with her
eyes dark in her pale face and the first presage of defeat in her heart.
CHAPTER VII: IN WHICH LOVEDAY STILL
ESSAYS TO OBTAIN THE WHITE SATIN RIBAND
Chapter VII
IN WHICH LOVEDAY STILL ESSAYS TO OBTAIN THE WHITE SATIN RIBAND
It were a weary task to chronicle all the ways trodden by Loveday during
the three weeks that followed her visit to Upper Farm, and yet, even so,
it would not be as weary as was the treading of them to that still
ardent though fearful girl. Hers grew to be a dread that would have
seemed to a spectator disproportionate indeed--for what can one heart
know of the sickness of another's, of its hurried beating when hope
beckons, of its numb slackening when hope fails? How swift to Loveday
seemed the relentless patter of the days past her questing feet, that,
run hither and thither as she would, yet could not keep pace with Time's
urgency! How slow to Loveday seemed the ticking of each moment, since
each held hope and fear full-globed, as in bubbles that rise and rise
only to burst into the empty air! So each moment rose, rounded, to meet
Loveday, held, and broke, till her mind was but a daze which confounded
speed with slowness, till she thought the future would never be the
present and found perpetually that it was the past.
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